


Fire That Cannon!

by SelkieSwarm



Series: As The Crow Flies [2]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Body Horror, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Mental Health Issues, Women in the NHL
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-16 23:13:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20610953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SelkieSwarm/pseuds/SelkieSwarm
Summary: Some parts of Lina's rookie year are awesome, like most of her teammates, the German restaurant that serves cream puffs the size of her face, and the brand new team cannon.Some other things are less awesome, like having to do interviews and the furious ghost in the arena that keeps smashing shit and loosing unholy death wails at four in the morning.She can handle the hockey. The ghost wrangling? That's the part that's gonna require a couple more cream puffs.





	1. A Fledgling Crow's First Interview

**Author's Note:**

> As always if you somehow found this by googling yourself or somebody you know, use that back button and let's never speak of this again! 
> 
> Holy moses this took way longer to get through than I thought it would. The tl;dr version is that everything in my life went to hell at an accelerated pace due to a pretty serious bout of illness in the family. Thankfully the patient is through the worst of it now so I can relax and go back to trying to get work done. 
> 
> On a related note thanks so much to everyone for the comments and the kudos on The First!! I'm so sorry I haven't been able to get back to them. 
> 
> Speaking of, this is the sequel to The First, and takes place over the course of the 07-08 season. All you really need to know (besides the obvious stuff listed in the tags) is the Jackets traded their first and second rounders in the 2008 draft to Boston in order to pick 7th and 8th overall in 2007. 
> 
> This and the next chapter are mostly worldbuilding and character development but the hockey starts after this, promise.
> 
> PS: The gigantic cream puffs are real, they sell them at a place called Schmidt's, and if you're ever in Columbus you have to have one.

It'd been less than a day since she agreed to do an interview, and she'd already forgotten what magazine this reporter worked for (_ Columbus… Monthly? Columbus living? something like that _) but she'd given her word so here she was in the Tim Horton's outside the arena, pretending she wasn't feeling frequent spikes of terror. 

She was a little shy and unsure of herself as a result but all that changed when the poor unsuspecting reporter stopped asking her about her game and made the crucial mistake of asking her about her heroes. 

The poor guy had no idea what can of worms he'd opened. He barely even had a chance to finish his sentence before she started talking. "Sergei Fedorov, Stan Mikita, and Manon Rheaume. Honestly, especially Rheaume."

Visibly taken aback by his subject's change in demeanor, the reporter felt the need to point out, "But you're not a goalie."

She shot him a huge grin. "Nope! But she's incredible, just how much she had to overcome to even get to a preseason game. She called me after the draft to congratulate me and I was so proud of myself for not saying 'oh my god I've carried your hockey card around in my wallet as a good luck charm since I was in pee wee'."

"Really?"

"Yeah dude, look!" She slapped a beaten up black leather trifold wallet on the table and opened it for him. 

Instead of her driver's license, there was indeed an extremely wrinkled and well loved Manon Rheaume rookie card. 

"Where do you keep your license?"

"Behind it, 'cause she came first. Hasek, Roy, and Brodeur are the guys people say are the greatest of all time but as far as I'm concerned, she's the greatest. Not for her stats but for everything else." And then she laughed, self conscious and shy again. "I'm kind of a dork, aren't I? Sorry."

The rest of the conversation went easier after that. They touched on everything from the benefits of being fae ("the nutritionist says I have to eat at least one of those ginormous cream puffs that German place has a day to keep my weight up! I love Columbus.") to what she'd miss most about Chicago ("the pizza. Not even close. Also the museums, but you guys can actually fix the pizza situation so please help a girl out here") to her hobbies ("collecting perfumes and testing makeup tutorials— that was an amazing surprised look!") and the challenges of growing up as a lionfish mermaid in Russia ("lionfish are tropical. Yekaterinburg is in the Ural Mountains. I didn't do much swimming because one of these things is _ really _ fucking not like the other, let's put it that way.")

And just like that the interview was almost over.

He'd saved the hot button question for last, though. "Is there anything you want to say to people who think drafting a woman is just a publicity stunt, and that a woman can't truly make it in the NHL?"

Before the reporter had even finished his sentence, she was shaking her head with enough force that her black-dyed curls whipped around her head. 

"Nah. They're free to their opinions even when they're wrong, but I don't argue with people who ignore conclusive evidence."

"Can you explain what you mean by conclusive evidence?"

"Yeah, absolutely. Okay so obviously I can't say for sure I'll make it in the NHL, so there's no conclusive evidence of that. But if this was just a publicity stunt, I either would've gone super late or just… not been drafted at all and signed as a free agent. Eighth overall is a lot of pressure, especially since the Jackets made a trade to get me. My mom was a scout, right? I know teams don't piss away first rounders on publicity stunts."

She paused for a second to collect her thoughts. "The only reason I went that high— and look, we all know by now that parts of the league aren't always willing to take chances on new things so I was totally expecting to _ be _ a publicity stunt— is because someone in scouting thinks I can be an NHL player. He also convinced management that I can be an NHL player." 

She stopped and downed the remains of her iced coffee in one gulp. "Is there pressure not to fail here? Yes. Absolutely yes. Is there more pressure than there would be if I was a guy? I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer that, having never been a guy. But there's a very different kind of pressure in knowing I'm the first woman to be drafted and that my success or failure will mess with things for girls in years to come."

She laughed again, giddy from nerves and caffeine now. "Actually, I try not to think about that, because every time I do I think I'm going to get super sick. I can't worry about that, you know? I can't change who I am, or that I'm the person in this position."

"Would you change it if you could? It sounds like a lot of pressure."

"Hell no. I'm an NHL draftee and got taken by a team in the midwest. I wouldn't give that up in a million years! The Blue Jackets have given me an amazing opportunity, and I won't let them or any of the girls cheering me on down by wasting it."

It was that very last sentence of the interview that ended up on the magazine cover. Standing in the line at Kroger with a copy to send home to her mom, she wasn't sure if what she felt was pride or if it was just relief that the reporter picked a quote that made her sound like a person with a mission and not a massive Manon Rheaume fangirl.

_I'll take it either way. _


	2. A Crow, Scott Howson, and the Ohio Penitentiary Ghost Walk Into Nationwide Arena...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When there's something strange in the neighborhood, who you gonna call?
> 
> An overcaffeinated 18 year old fuckup who would lose her own ass if it wasn't attached to her. What can possibly go wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, tags have been updated as best I can while on vacation with no computer.
> 
> Let me know if I missed anything else and I'll fix it as soon as I get home!

The nicest thing about being drafted by the team hosting the event was that Lina had the easiest time in the world finding accommodations till training camp. All she had to do was run down to the front desk to extend her room and then she was free to explore Columbus to her heart's content. 

Jake had opted to go to Florida for a few days with his folks after he and Lina had signed their deals, but Lina didn't see much point in heading back to Chicago. Her sense of direction wasn't the greatest and she wanted to familiarize herself with the city since due to her age she was going to be in one of two places for the 2007-08 hockey season, and as much as she loved Halifax, she was going to do her best to make sure she wasn't sent back to the Q. 

(Well okay, she _ told _ herself she just wanted to get more familiar with the city but to be quite honest, she just didn't want to make that 8 hour drive back to Chicago if she could get out of it. She'd had kind of a long month already. Sue her.)

But she started to wonder if hanging around was the right thing to do when she got a call from Howson on the way back from the airport after playing chauffeur for the Voraceks. It wasn't like he'd screamed at her, he just politely told her wanted her to stop by the arena when she had a chance.

Still, when your boss wanted to talk to you a few months before you even had your official first day of work it wasn't usually a great sign.

And that was the long and short of why Lina was pacing around the back halls of Nationwide with the look of a deer in headlights till Howson finished whatever general managerly things he was in the middle of when she showed up and beckoned her into his office.

The first thing out of his mouth was, "don't worry, you're not in trouble", before offering her a bottled iced cappuccino. She relaxed slightly; if she was reading this right, the organization was prepared to accommodate the high sugar, high dairy, high fat diet that fae athletes required. _ This shouldn't be too rough of a conversation, then, _ she thought as she sipped her iced cappuccino and made small talk for a while— the usual 'how's the city, nice weather we're having' kind of thing. 

And then finally the question she'd been dreading. "Is there anything we can do to help you adjust easier?"

She hesitated, not quite sure if it was safe to mention it, then took the plunge. "Actually, yeah, I… need to find a therapist who works with trauma patients. I usually have weekly appointments but I don't have anybody set up yet here, and since I'm gonna be in Columbus at least for the summer I'd like to keep up on my treatment."

Howson stared at her with curiosity, and the scar that ran over her right eye and down her right cheek burned under the scrutiny. 

"Is that why you didn't talk about the scar at the combine?" It was worded like a question. She could tell it wasn't. 

She glanced at the desk, unable to meet his eyes in case she saw pity or disgust (even after all these years, she still couldn't tell which one bothered her more). "More or less, yeah. My folks are great but my bio folks' death was, you know. Rough. Also Russian orphanages aren't… really the most amazing places to grow up. I just didn't want to deal with that being all over the media when I'm trying to make such a big step, y'know? At least not right now."

He nodded understandingly, and after taking a sip of his coffee observed, "l almost forgot you're adopted, actually."

That wasn't what she'd been bracing for at _ all _, and it startled a laugh and some of the anxiety out of her. 

"God, I'm so sorry, it's not that it's _ funny _, it's just, uh, that's not a thing anybody who's met my folks has ever said to me before."

She didn't think it was an unfair response since Howson had in fact met her folks. While she had a passing physical resemblance to her dad Leo (as he was her late mom's second cousin, that wasn't some kind of massive shock), the majority of the Sureau family had blue eyes, ginger hair, and were Haitian immigrants. This included her mom Lisette. 

(She grew up hearing the story of how her grandpa had been fined and thrown out of a game in his rookie year for pulling his sealskin on and flopping into the crowd because a wasted visiting team fan had said just a little too loudly that he was pretty sure black people couldn't be fae. It was probably her favorite family anecdote.)

Lina, meanwhile, had one grey-blue eye and one gold slit pupiled eye, coppery dark red hair (when she wasn't dying it anyway), and was so pale she had multiple Sureau second cousins decide they were hilarious and buy her replicas of Adam Savage's "keep out of direct sunlight" t-shirt for Christmas 2006. 

(She still had no idea what in god's name she was going to do with six of the fucking things. Sew them together and make a dog blanket, maybe.)

But her comment at least got a smile out of him. "You mentioned Russia— I was hoping you would. I have a favor I'd like to ask from you. Or, well, a couple of them."

"Boss, you say jump and I say how high." She knew he'd taken a pretty big risk in drafting her and that kinda meant she owed him one. And like most fae, she always paid her debts.

"Are you familiar with Nikolay Zherdev?"

She was indeed, since the Jackets were in the Central and she'd spent all of middle school taking advantage of her mom's connections to go to as many Hawks games as possible. She didn't even have to stop and think too hard to remember what he looked like— olive skin, dark brown hair and eyes, aquiline nose, small scar on one cheek. "The guy who had such a bad time with getting over here the last GM had to get an international court involved to tell Russia to stop claiming compulsory military service on him, right? He's supposed to be really good but really," she stopped herself from blurting out _ moody and high maintenance _ and changed it to, "struggling to adjust?"

Howson smiled, and it was so devoid of any positive emotion that she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was aware of everything she hadn't said. "Exactly. I'll be honest with you, we think you can be an asset for us on and off the ice, because there are a couple reasons why we pursued you that have nothing whatsoever to do with hockey. Zherdev is one of them. I don't want to prejudice you against any of your teammates before you meet them, but Nikolay's… not the easiest person to deal with if you only speak English, and we're hoping having another Russian speaker on the team besides Fedorov and Svitov will make everybody's life a little easier. Will you try to make friends over camp?"

"I will do my fucking best," she promised. She even managed not to smile like a maniac at the mention of the team's most famous Russian player. In the very back of her closet in Chicago there was a single Detroit Red Wings sweater with Sergei Fedorov's name and number hidden behind a small collection of Hawks jerseys. Getting a chance to play with one of her heroes was an unbelievable thought.

"But you said a couple of reasons? What's the other thing?"

Howson put his coffee down and got straight to the point. "My scouts said you have exceptionally strong death magic, that you can communicate with ghosts and reanimate skeletons? We… have a slight ghost problem in Nationwide that I'd love for you to take a look at.

She stared at him in horror for a moment before the rest of her brain caught up to her anxiety disorder and relaxed again. _ Nobody's gonna kick you off the team for seeing dead people when that's part of why they drafted you, doof. _

"Yeah, it's… a long story but it's some kind of hereditary thing from my bio mom's side. I can try to take care of your ectoplasmic compadre now if you want me to take a look?"

His relief was palpable as he gestured at her to follow him out into the hall and into the elevator. 

"That's a yeah, then. So do you know anything about the ghost? Anything you can tell me at all?"

He sighed as the doors closed. "I’ll spare you a very long story of my own, but the arena sits on the site of a former death row prison. … well, _ technically _, it's on the prison parking lot."

"... oh. So where was the prison itself?"

"The parking lots outside of the Ice Haus."

Lina physically cringed. The two parking lots were feet away from the practice facility's entrance and the back entrance of the arena, and the one time she'd parked there she'd felt pain and terror so severe she'd gotten sick a few times before deciding to move her car. If there had been a former execution site there, then that explained _ everything_. 

The cocktail of emotions from someone facing a violent death (like, for example, _ the electric chair) _ was incredibly strong and were likely to leave residual emotions on the site of the death itself for a very long time. If you were inclined to be sensitive to those traces (and oh baby was she ever) and wandered into the area unsuspectingly, you were going to have a bad day. She was kinda surprised she hadn’t picked up on it since this wasn’t a new thing for her.  
  
She grew up in Yekaterinburg, and as a very tiny Crow she hadn’t been able to go near what used to be Ipatiev House for more than about twenty seconds before she started crying and getting sick from fear. She didn’t find out till after she’d moved that the last tsar and his family had all been executed there. 

(Needless to say, the Church of All Saints that was on the site now was pretty high up on her list of places to _ never fucking ever _ go on vacation.)

Unaware of the morbid turn her thoughts had taken, Howson was still talking even as the elevator opened. She forced herself to pay attention because it was usually a_ really _stupid idea to zone out while somebody was giving you information about the rampaging undead that they wanted you to deal with. "It's been breaking things and screaming for a couple of years now and none of us know what to do. I wish I could give you more information than that, like what it looks like, but we don’t have anyone on staff who can even see it."

That sounded pretty dire. "I'll definitely take a look now then. I just need to get my ghost stuff…"

Before Howson could offer to send someone to grab it, she reached up into the air with both hands and... her arms disappeared up to her elbows. 

Ignoring her boss and how everything about him oozed pure concentrated what-the-fuck, Lina rummaged around in what appeared to be thin air. Suddenly she grinned and pulled up. With a bizarre pop that reminded Howson of a strong suction cup being pulled off of a window, her arms reappeared.

… and she was holding a Lucky Charms box with a bottle of green apple vodka duct taped to the side. 

"There we go! All ready."

"Lina, what…"

"Because if you're already an Irish stereotype you may as well embrace it." After a beat, "oh duh, you meant what's in here. Uh, a speaker for my ipod, salt, incense, crystals, some offering dishes, herbs— oh no, not like _ that _," she added, noticing his look of alarm. "I'm not gonna fail my drug tests! Like, cooking herbs. Garlic and lavender and thyme and stuff. Sometimes ghosts need some TLC, and sometimes you have to hurl a whole clove of garlic at their face and tell them to git. Just like the living, really!"

He was still trying to catch up with her… logic, for lack of any better term to use, when the lights flickered twice before going out altogether. 

The grin left her face immediately. "... That it?"

"Yes it is. And it's about to get worse." He pulled two pairs of earplugs out of his jacket pocket, put one in and handed one to a passing member of maintenance who was running as fast as he could in the other direction.

"What do you me— oh fuck, oh _ god_! Okay, I guess that's what you meant!"

Even if Howson hadn't plugged his ears, he wouldn't have heard her response due to the bone-chilling, unholy, _ extremely god damn loud _ howl that echoed around the entire arena and blew out a fluorescent light fixture down the hall.

"Well, that's mercury," he told her, resigned. "We'd better move so the magical members of maintenance can handle it."

"... so how often does this happen, how long specifically has it been happening and more importantly, how was it allowed to go on till now?" she asked, jogging along in his wake as several people stepped in with glowing hands to erect a barrier behind them. 

"To answer your last question first, my predecessor thought if he didn't believe in it it couldn't be real. So… three times a week at minimum for the past eight years, to answer the rest."

"Okay wow, there's so much wrong with that I don't even know where to start— ho_ly _ fuck."

They'd rounded a corner and as far as Howson could tell, they'd walked right into a random cold cold patch. 

From Lina's perspective, however, she'd bumped into a fifty foot tall generic-white-person-colored sea slug with arms, and no fewer than a hundred and twenty identical human heads sprouting out of its... head, for lack of a better term. And back. 

And about half of them were looking at her. 

"... uh, I found him, Mr Howson. Aaaand he's big. Maybe back off and put the earplugs in again?" She waited for him to listen before tapping the ghost on the tail. "Hi there! I'm Crow, I work here now!"

The heads that hadn't been looking at her sure were now. "Crow? Can… see me?" The ghost spoke with what Lina was pretty sure was a different voice for each one of its heads, except it was using them all at once. As an added bonus, they were all hoarse as hell from being used for nothing but screaming since the prison closed. (She made a mental note to pick up some extra strength headache meds on the way home tonight.) 

"Uh-huh. You look very intimidating!"

Being smiled at by 120-plus heads all attached to the same being was a new and moderately creepy experience, but she couldn't help smiling back anyway.

"Do you have a name?"

The ghost shook his heads. 

"... 'Kay. Do you _ want _ a name?"

The ghost shook his heads again. 

"All righty then. How 'bout a friend?"

"Friend? Yes."

"Awesome. We're friends now so let's shake on it. But that means you gotta promise to come to me if you need anything instead of freaking the humans out. Deal?"

"Deeeal." It was more of an exhaled breath than a properly spoken word. Lina chalked it up to the whole 'death wails for 50 years straight with no one to have a normal conversation with' thing instead of reluctance, and took him at his word. 

She offered the ghost her hand and ever so slowly he reached a fifteen foot long, spindly, nearly skeletally thin arm down to shake. 

On a whim, Lina offered him the bottle of vodka and he carefully patted her head a couple of times before taking it and disappearing. 

She trotted back to Howson and waited for him to take the earplugs out (and until he looked a little less deeply disturbed by watching one of his first ever draft picks talk to thin air). 

"I fixed it, least for right now. He's gonna go through me if he needs anything, and that should mean he'll stop breaking shit and waking up everybody in the apartments around here with the endless fucking screaming."

Lina couldn't remember if she'd ever seen so much tension go out of someone's body they doubled over for a second before.

Later, as she headed back to the hotel with the Timmie's donut Howson bought her as a thank you (chocolate frosted with CBJ themed sprinkles, natch) she texted a rundown of her afternoon to Jake. She didn't expect a reply, but to her surprise she got one immediately. 

**Jake:** _ Did you tell him youve only ever dealt with a poltergeist n dead deer before? _

**Lina:** _ Nope! :D _

**Jake:** _ Your the luckiest person I know. Its stupid. Thats going to run dry sometime. _

**Lina:**_ Prolly, but if u dont think Im gonna ride that train till it stops you missed all that time last year we spent together. Also these donuts are bitchin. _

**Jake:** _ share :o _

(She sent him a picture instead for obvious reasons.) 

**Jake:** _I cant eat that. :c_

**Lina:**_ Ill tell the internet to hurry up and let me send you food soon. You go to back to the beach or whatever and Ill see you soon. _

Development camp opened in under ten days, after all. 


End file.
